My Lady Series Bundle by Shirl Anders Read Free Book Online

stated.
    Wyndham wielded a slow calculating grin at him. "Touche, Drummond. You are a leader of our times. I shall leave you to, well-." Wyndham inclined his head slightly and retreated.
    Drummond watched Wyndham disappear around the corner just as Gabriella sobbed beneath him. She truly was crying. Damnation, he had never intended to-.
    "I w-will do a-anything you say. Please, j-just release me!"
    Grimly determined, Drummond lifted Gabriella, swinging her around to face him, countering his tender urges with command. "Now you have the proof of my determination, madame."
    He had not intended it. It had been the furthest notion from his engaged thoughts, however, viewing Gabriella's lovely face, tear-stained with embarrassment and perhaps a hint of shame. He just-.
    Gabriella could not think coherently, she was mortified, indignant, and more than cowed by Drummond's superior baring. All this despite the fact that her entire body tingled strangely and her woman's core was liquid. However, in the midst of these clamorous emotions, she abruptly found her lips smothered beneath Drummond's mouth.
    Drummond was kissing her! So unexpected was this that Gabriella forgot to breathe for several long moments beneath the determined seduction of Drummond's warm virile lips. That was until she suddenly gasped for air and his male tongue swept inside her mouth. This was an entirely foreign endeavor to her that left her folded backward over his supporting arm as her hands made fists in his lapels. His tongue was firm and bold, lapping her lips, top and bottom, to return with a tease against the tip of her tongue, until she followed it into his gently sucking mouth. She nearly swooned then as he captured her tongue inside the heat of his inner mouth, and he began to suckle it back and forth. Just-just, like coupling!
    Drummond tasted of fire and heady wicked things, and when he released her tongue, lifting his lips from hers, an actual whimper of loss cascaded out of her throat.
    "I shall allow you ten minutes to repair yourself, madame, then I shall expect you in the gaming salon with your secret prepared."
    Dazed, Gabriella could only mutter a half agreeable sighing sound.
    "And, your lips, kitten, after I have kissed them, are ravishing," Drummond said, right before he released Gabriella and turned to stride away. He left conspicuously to allow Gabriella the time to collect herself and never would he admit the same need to collect himself . . . after that one devastating kiss from her lips.

Chapter Nine
    D rummond paused some moments later just outside the half-chiseled, glass doors, leading into the gaming salon with his hand poised on the golden knob, shaped in the outline of a lion's head. He admitted to himself that he was disturbed, as he slowly lifted his hand from the knob, not only by the kiss, but by Gabriella herself. Everything would have been splendid, more than he could ever have hoped to imagine, except then Wyndham had arrived unexpected.
    "Christ," he muttered, stepping backward away from the door. He could not ignore, Gabriella's feelings completely. Of course, he could override the ones that stifled her natural passions, those devilish strictures that they bombarded into every woman in their society, with feelings of shame over their nude bodies and the denial of their sexual yearnings. These same teachings, that only a wanton or a whore would enjoy her husband's baser needs with anything more than duty.
    It was all balderdash, putrid and banal philosophies that stripped the young women in their society of any chance of happiness in a man's arms. He could break down the barriers of these misbegotten codes. He could strip Gabriella of every misconception, by force if necessary, however what he could not do, is to lay hurtful waste to her pride and yes, even worse her honor.
    Except, that is just what had happened with the untimely arrival of Wyndham. In Gabriella's heart she would be humiliated to have been seen thus, not